by Jin Lovelace, HSM team writer & filmmaker

In spite of my background, I’ll be the first to say that I love Halloween. Growing up in a community where I was breakdancing as a vampire and performing the Kid ‘n Play “Kick Step” were some of the fondest moments of my life.

My Home experience – for Halloween’s sake – has gone from lacking to just sheer joy. Lacking, due to the aesthetic approach of the holiday in the MMO. I’m more than down for a comical romp every now and then, and you can never say “no” to some zombies dancing to the generic version of “Thriller” in the Burn Zombie, Burn public space. What comes to mind more is when Central Plaza (at the time of its existence) started to update the space with its Halloween theme by placing a huge Pumpkin right in the center of the space and providing us a mini-game where you can win a snazzy Pumpkin costume. Toward its final days, we saw a major makeover that gave me some of the fondest memories of all time: giving it an actual holiday makeover.

So it was a little surprising to see Juggernaut Games’ Serenity Plaza go from solace to just downright spooky this season. After all, they made a great impact with the Cutteridge Estate, and have shown how to translate horror the right way in PlayStation Home.

There’s nothing light about this thematic makeover this time around. Fog covers the majority of the Plaza, along with a few colorful ghosts hovering above the center of the space. Well, I guess technically that would be the only thing lighthearted about this update.

Minus the space’s signature mini-games available, in place of them is the Werewolf vs. Vampire game, where you can win rewards based on the community score. Starting the game took a good while, and most complained they couldn’t play the game at all. Seeing this as the norm of most Home games, patience was key and I’ve managed to finally enter the game.

Two statues are available for playstyle preference (I laud the vampire more, of course) but both incorporate the same motive: take out the scared-stiff avatars as they run away from your presence. Pressing Square will make you howl (as a werewolf) or entice them with your beauty (as a vampire), causing them to stun and for you to have your way at them. Pressing the X button initiates an attack (slash attack for werewolf, stealing their life’s essence for the vampire) to finish them off. Each kill nets more time added to your time limit; your initial start is at 50 seconds. The more kills you rack, the more time given, but of lesser value.

If you wish to power up and are looking to get on the scoreboard or to contribute a large amount of points towards the community score, you can purchase the respective creature statues for $1.99, which will give you an LMO and a costume of the said creature chosen.

Werewolf Costume from Werewolves vs Vampire statue.

Out of all the Halloween-themed mini-games available in PlayStation Home of past and present, werewolves vs vampire wins the “favorite of all-time” award for the execution, simplicity, and appeal. For the little that you can do in the game, it does so much. Aside from being whichever varmint of your choice, it’s just good, clean fun without any complications at all. The biggest draw for me was the music. Seriously: I felt that it could be a good musical score for a movie, and that’s saying something about a Home musical piece.

As of right now, I’m simply lauding this space for it’s spooky theme and the rewards; upon reaching 250,000 community points unlocks the Werewolf claws and Vampire Teeth, which aren’t visible unless he/she opens their mouth. About time, I say!

With the exceptional note of some issues with accessing the mini-game available, this is one of the perfect spaces to go to this Halloween season. Juggernaut games have put their foot in this to recreate Central Plaza this year and to update us with something cool in an area that I personally view as “spooky done right” is an experience that will last a long time.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m like a kid in a candy store. I’m donning my teeth to hunt down those with treats.

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